Synopses taken from the catalogue of the 65th Venice International Film Festival

published by Electa

Werner Schroeter

Nuit de chien

Santamaria train station at night. Ossorio, a forty-year-old man, arrives exhausted with the crowd of refugees and defeated soldiers. He comes back to the city he knew to meet the woman he loves. But everything has changed. A violent militia terrorizes the city. Rival factions oppose. During the ultimate night, everyone tries to save their hide. Hopelessly.

Tariq Teguia

Gabbla (Inland)

Living almost as a recluse, the topographer Malek accepts a job in a region of western Algeria at the insistence of his friend Lakhdar. Malek arrives at the base camp previously used by a team, but decimated by fundamentalists. A young shepherd observes him from afar; several men, some armed, approach and question his being there. Having previously run from Islamist terrorism, these farmers decided to return to their village. At dusk, the local police arrive for a routine visit. After the police have left, Malek is invited by the villagers to a makeshift party. During the night a series of explosions are heard. At dawn, Malek begins the first topographical readings, surveys the area surrounding the base camp and measures distances. During the night, again his sleep is disturbed by powerful explosions. The next morning, Malek sees a crowd along the edges of the mined field. On his return to the base camp, he discovers a young woman hiding in a corner of the Saharan hut. She’s an African woman and won’t give her name. Lakhdar arrives at the site, to find that both she and Malek have disappeared. At first, the two runaways head north, towards the Moroccan frontier which is the route to reach the Spanish enclave of Mellila. But the young woman doesn’t want to flee to Europe; she’s exhausted and wants to return home. With her finger, she traces the itinerary on Malek’s maps, an interminable diagonal towards the southeast, the route to Tchad – towards the desert, towards a point of mutual disappearance.

Yu Lik-wai

Dangkou (Plastic City)

Liberdade, São Paulo: a multiethnic neighborhood with the largest Japanese immigrant community in the world. Here, traditional Japanese architecture clashes with the gritty urban landscapes, while people of all races come here to do business – legal or illegal. Yuda, a fearful Chinese outlaw, and his adopted son Kirin, an impulsive young dreamer, together rule the pirated goods racket in the ultra-liberal Brazilian metropolis. The magnate and his heir control all of Liberdade, from rival gangs to street hawkers, from corrupt politicians to erotic dancers. But an empire that takes years to build can also crumble to the ground with one fatal mistake... A conspiracy between politicians and the mafia begins to threaten Yuda’s power. Little by little, he loses control of his business and is ultimately arrested. Kirin struggles to re-conquer his father’s honor, fighting this city’s wars single-handedly. But Yuda, tired of the bloodshed and feeling the weight of his years, abandons his son, falsifies his own death and returns to the jungle in a last attempt to put an end to his criminal life. Escaping from a complex maze of violence, Kirin sets out to find his father. In the mysterious jungle, father and son both have to wipe the slate of their past clean. Only in the end will Kirin discover the ultimate answer to the search for his own destiny.